Maybe this has happened to you: you're watching a film, dum de dum, suddenly... METHOD! Where did it come from and where does it go when it's gone? Let's take three examples that jump immediately to mind:
1. Robert De Niro in BLOODY MAMA (1970).
Roger Corman is noted for giving a lot of future stars their first breaks, thanks to his "just get it done under budget and you can do whatever the hell you want" approach. Here he lets method paragons like Bruce Dern, Shelly Winters and a very young Robert De Niro go completely nutso as Ma Barker and her bloody brood. While the brood keeps a low profile at an Ozark lakefront hideout, De Niro's scrawny junky spies a beautiful girl bathing off aways, he's led more or less by the wafts of opium and desire to come right after her. While she tries to find out what he wants, De Niro--with the scariest yet funniest "cracked out grin" you'll ever see--just playfully paws at her and keeps trying to say something, but... what? I don't want to bring you down with the violent outcome, but let's just say De Niro breaks out of his "bit part" cocoon here and shows the world its first tiny glimpse hideously gorgeous method butterfly that would rocket to the forefront of his craft with MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER in the next few years. 
2. Elia Kazan in CITY FOR CONQUEST
While Jimmy Cagney and Ann Sheridan tussle over the fate of the kid brother with the violin, Elia Kazan creeps in from the wings, takes a quick look around, and quietly steals the picture as a Jewish outcast turned mobster who helps Cagney and Co. out by taking some crooked gamblers out to the docks for a little "shooting." The scene of him in the back seat with his gun in the ribs of his prey, babbling on with a mix of canny patter and borderline hysterical bravado casts a shadow that even Cagney has to work to measure up to in the rest of the film. Brilliant stuff, yet Kazan's only screen appearance before settling in as paragon of Method film making.
P.S. I dig Kazan and to hell with the politics. You can bitch all you want about Kazan "naming names" but unless you've been the victim of a witch hunt and quietly stood the test yourself, you don't really have the right to judge, now do you?
(NOTE: Eight more paragraphs of ranting on topic of witch hunts, hysteria and communism deleted by editor)
3. Dean and Baker in GIANT? Hmmm I already wrote about them on Acidemic. hmmmmm.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Moments of Xtreme Method
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5 comments:
P.S. I dig Kazan and to hell with the politics. You can bitch all you want about Kazan "naming names" but unless you've been the victim of a witch hunt and quietly stood the test yourself, you don't really have the right to judge, now do you?
I respectfully disagree (unless you're being facetious, but even if so I've heard others make this argument). This is akin to saying that only the mentally handicapped have the right to judge whether or not filmic depictions of their condition are exploitative or not. Or, furthermore, it's like the assertion that naysayers of POW torture methods should submit themselves to these practices before deeming them inhumane (Christopher Hitchens actually did...he lasted in a waterboarding exercise for about 90 seconds, I think). I could spout some logical verbiage by Kant to further elucidate here, but it's not always necessary to have undergone a difficult experience in order to judge those who have. Otherwise the whole notion of "war crimes" could more or less be defenestrated.
Kazan wasn't the only one that named names, but there were others who didn't, and paid for it -- suggesting that there was a rather acute gradient of will power in Hollywood at the time. That having been said, I don't think Kazan can be criticized for being a traitor, just for being weak -- weaker than the unholy juggernaut of McCarthyism. The irony is that at the time, Kazan was probably the most socially astute, prognosticatingly hip director around -- so for him to have caved in of all people must have been quite a let-down. But then again, it was probably that let-down that gave us "On the Waterfront," so art wins in the end. Now that's XTREME Method!
Thanks, Jon, for your good points. I try not to judge, but I get mad when others do, which is in itself a form of judgment. Who am I to judge those who would judge other judges?
But about the water boarding, I think your comparison is off the mark a bit, the Kazan comparison would be someone who has never been tortured judging someone who talked under torture. We're both gladly judging McCarthyism as bad, for example, without having lived in the 1950s as senators swept up in the fervor of rabid patriotism and addictive fear-mongering.
Or as Nigel said to David St. Hubbins' girlfriend, when she told him their last album was mixed poorly: "How do you know? Were you there?"
Spinal Tap, now THAT'S Xtreme method!
Thanks Erich. To clarify, I wasn't comparing Hitchens to Kazan (or anyone in this discussion, for that matter) but just noting that the whole wacky Cheney/Rumsfeld "Don't knock torture till you've tried it" offer has had few takers, and the proud few who have taken them up on it seem to be, still, proving that the methods are inhumane -- thus my befuddlement (it was a bit of a sidebar).
In any case, I do agree it's easy for us, vindicated by history, to judge every seemingly sheepish failure to uphold the right -- be it Kazan's succumbing to communist witch hunts or Günter Grass's late career admittance to being a member of the SS. You're right -- we weren't there. And ultimately it's pretty useless to judge works of art by their progenitor's apparent moral integrity (or lack thereof).
Or, as Derek Smalls said, describing the tragic death of a bandmate who choked on someone else's vomit, some mysteries are better left UNsolved...
Haha! I forgot all about that one. Speaking of history, I just read your Slant piece on the Korda Cudgel! Damn, you got some mouthwateringly elaborate sentences in there. I came to it figuring out whether to buy the set, but now I just want to read your other reviews. Good show!
Thanks much, Erich! Although I'm probably more needlessly wordy than "mouthwateringly elaborate" (a very fitting description all the same, coz I probably drop enough adverbs to drive Strunk and White up a wall). In any case, I was rather happy with the way the Korda turned out.
FYI: I apparently have my own Rotten Tomatoes page, which collects all the stuff I've written for Slant in a neat little list, for anyone who might be interested.
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